CHAPTER 488: A PATHETIC LOST-I

With her legs frozen in place as her shadow had been caught by Morpheus, Arabella felt gravity pull her downward. The earth beneath her split open, a muddy mess gaping to swallow her whole. She should have fallen and her body should have plummeted but instead, she floated.

Her feet didn’t once sink in, instead it had hovered, her boots relaxed as it touched nothingness as if the air itself had became her staircase.

Gasps rippled through the crowd.

The other sorcerers blinked, rubbing their eyes as if the sight before them couldn’t possibly be real.

Witches could manipulate most elements including earth, fire, air, and water— but never in recorded history had anyone flown. To rise freely into the air without wings and just mere spells were impossible. They had never seen a magic written to fly, to go against the gravity of the world.

And yet, there she was.

Arabella hovered above the training ground, her bright hair fluttering with the pull of the wind. Over the sun, her hair and appearance above the sky seemed just like a goddess of fire that had lowered her body to the earth for mortals.

Her boots did not touch the ground as she continued to take steps above the sky, going feet away further from the spot she had stood at and her dress billowed softly.

When she lifted her hand, a pale glow burst into existence on her palm. The light split like a blade and struck down, cutting clean through the dark shadow that had bound her. The invisible black lines snapped, vanishing into the air.

The display of her magic was so graceful and fluid, so much so that even Morpheus had to pause and admired what had happened. His neck tilted upward as he craned his gaze toward her, the faintest flicker of disbelief shadowing his features.

"You can fly," he said, his voice a low murmur, but there was a hint of awe buried beneath the words.

He studied her intently, his mind racing. Flying required control over gravity itself— an impossible feat for any witch. The mana required to sustain such balance would have drained even Circe in seconds. After all once in the past, Circe herself had tried to use magic to fly but to no avail, closing the idea on flying for good. And yet, Arabella stood poised in the air as if she belonged there, as if invisible wings had been attached to her backs.

If she could do what even Circe couldn’t do... what else could she do? What other tricks were hidden under her sleeve? Those things she had hid... soon once their marriage commence, it would be all his!

His awe, however, quickly soured into something darker when he caught the look in her eyes as she soared on the sky. It was a pitying, almost condescending look on her face that sent him from surprise and awe to a quick anger and envy.

That faint, pitiful smile made something inside Morpheus twist.

"But flying won’t be enough to stop me," he said coldly, stretching his hand forward.

If earlier he had only planned to scare her, now his plan was to make her submit.

The ground beneath them trembled violently. Dust rose in clouds as fissures cracked across the sand ground, and a deep rumble echoed from below.

The audience stumbled back, alarmed, while Morpheus let out a wider smile as blood dripped furiously, coloring his sleeves red which meant he had activated yet another magic circle that he had sewn inside his robe.

The air bubbled along the rampaging earthquake echoing from the floor beneath their feet.

But Cassius, standing at the edge of the training ground, watched with an entirely different expression. His crimson eyes gleamed with something between pride and quiet amusement.

Because he saw it.

What everyone else believed to be flight was nothing more than an illusion— an exquisite trick. Beneath Arabella’s boots, a thin, nearly invisible layer of water shimmered like glass. It refracted the sunlight so perfectly that it disappeared to the untrained eye.

She wasn’t flying.

She was walking on water.

Cassius’s smile deepened, the corner of his lips twitching upward as he crossed his arms. He knew this would happen but it still struck him as Brilliant.

No one else would have noticed. To most, she seemed ethereal, almost as if she had turned into a divine creature —but Cassius knew better. Arabella had found a way to defy gravity with logic, not luck. It wasn’t that she had more magic than Morpheus. It was that she understood it better.

When everyone else saw limitations, she saw equations.

Even as Morpheus’s power swelled, Cassius remained unbothered. His confidence in her was absolute. He knew that the more Morpheus believed himself in control, the closer he was to defeat.

Because Arabella wasn’t fighting on instinct— she was testing a theory.

He remembered their conversation from the night before. She had been buried in her books, her brow furrowed as she scribbled notes along the margins. Her words had been absentminded, yet sharpened with intellect and instinct of a witch.

"Don’t you think Morpheus has a limit?"

Cassius had looked up from his chair, curiosity flickering in his gaze.

"Limits? Everyone has them. Why?"

A small, knowing smile had formed on her lips. "Because I think I’ve found his."

Back in the present, Cassius’s chest warmed with something dangerously close to pride. While everyone thought that she could only pull a few tricks against Morpheus, he knew exactly what she was doing.

When Morpheus’s first instinct was to drag her back down, she let him believe he could. The moment he tried to overpower her, he revealed his limit— and still Morpheus foolishly was unaware of what he was lacking, playing right on her plan.

And, as if on cue, the ground erupted.

From the shaking soil, dark branches burst upward, twisting in rapid, violent growth. The air filled with the scent of burning wood and magic, the roots clawing toward the hovering witch with hungry intent.

But Cassius only smirked, leaning slightly forward.

"You have him on the platter," he murmured under his breath.